{"id":707682,"date":"2026-06-01T05:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T05:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/707682\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T05:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T05:58:09","slug":"arsenal-have-embraced-everyone-trophy-parade-a-celebration-of-a-community-arsenal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/707682\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Arsenal have embraced everyone\u2019: trophy parade a celebration of a community | Arsenal"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Arsenal<\/a> bus turned off Blackstock Road towards Newington Green, the heaving crowd was ready. It was only a brief moment, and one more than partially obscured by a drift of red smoke, but as the Premier League champions came past nobody was about to miss their shot. The phones were out, the zoom was pinched and the moment was captured. Then everyone darted off again.<\/p>\n

If it was to catch the bus at another point on its odyssey around Islington, to go home, or just rejoin a picnic wasn\u2019t entirely clear. This was not a celebration confined to the official route of the parade. Nor, even, strictly to celebrating Arsenal\u2019s on-field success. It was more than that, and a lot more; a celebration of a community local and global, of an identity that has been forged in adversity and endless mockery, and a moment of joy for a generation that has often not had much to celebrate, full stop.<\/p>\n

The Metropolitan police had estimated Arsenal\u2019s title parade would be the biggest in English sporting history, predicting more than 1 million people would line the five-mile route. The packed trains coming into Kings Cross from the north and over the river from the south bore this out. There was also a steady stream of Lime bikes heading west from Hackney, while in and around Highbury itself, every resident was either on their stoop or the first-floor roof with a foldable chair. It was a roadblock around Finsbury Park, and on Holloway Road there was a crowd on top of the Tesco Extra. Some people had flags in their windows, another a Gunnersaurus towel. A middle-aged man was hobbling down the Holloway Road in full kit, including boots. The ratio of Arsenal shirts to every other kind of clothing was pretty much two to one.<\/p>\n

Solene was waiting for the parade with her friend Zoe on Petherton Road in Highbury. Born in north London, she now lives in Birmingham with her family, and was working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo until Thursday when she took the decision to fly back for the parade (as had a Congolese colleague). \u201cNorth London is everything to a lot of people who were raised here, which we both were,\u201d Solene said, citing remarks by Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York and Arsenal fan. \u201cHe said that Arsenal represents not only north London, but all of London and, more than that, aspiration in general. And I\u2019m really proud of that. I think you wouldn\u2019t recognise this club compared to the one of, say, 50 years ago. It\u2019s embraced everyone. Which is amazing, as it\u2019s everyone\u2019s game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taken from the top of London Metropolitan University, red smoke drifts above Holloway Road with the London in the background as Arsenal start their trophy parade. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Solene\u2019s observations were backed up by the diversity of the crowds around her. Much like the spontaneous celebrations that sparked up when Arsenal won the league two weeks ago<\/a>, this was an event to which everyone turned up. Black Londoners were to the fore, in a way rarely seen inside a Premier League football ground, but every ethnicity and nationality in London was present. There were hijabis marching down Holloway Road with flags around their shoulders, there were men chanting about Declan Rice in Turkish on Seven Sisters Road and Colombians with good seats and stuffed cool boxes in Clissold Park.<\/p>\n

There were young and old, male and female, but if this parade belonged to anyone, it was those under the age of 30. They were everywhere and often wearing the shirts of Ars\u00e8ne Wenger\u2019s Invincibles, the last Arsenal team to win the Premier League, in 2004, and a side of whom they will likely have no direct memory. These are the fans who have grown up in the banter era, when Arsenal were the butt of many a joke, but also the age of hyper-commercial football, where a day out at the game might cost you a week\u2019s wages. They are, furthermore, the generation of social media and Covid and the global financial crash. As one young man (from south London) explained his reasons for turning up: \u201cEveryone\u2019s looking for a bit of happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The final destination of the parade was the Emirates Stadium and a ceremony that was not opened to the crowds. This didn\u2019t seem to matter much to most, with people spilling into the empty roads to sing and shout and a number of sound systems on Holloway Road creating a vaguely carnival-like feel. Away from the hubbub, two more north Londoners, born and bred, were discussing how things had changed.<\/p>\n

Myles Lewis-Skelly jumps over the Premier League trophy in the Arsenal dressing room before the parade. Photograph: Stuart MacFarlane\/Arsenal FC\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Kenny and Andrew could recall standing on the corner of Liverpool Road in 1971 to welcome Bertie Mee\u2019s Double winners. \u201cBack then you would get right behind the bus and just follow it,\u201d said Andrew, now 60. \u201cYou\u2019d shout things at the players and they\u2019d shout back, then they\u2019d all give a speech at the town hall. There was a real back and forth. Today the bus just raced past and the players barely noticed you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two friends were not sure quite how many of those on the streets were long-standing Arsenal fans and were astonished at the amount of money people had seemed to spend in order to party, especially on the replica shirts that start at \u00a380 nowadays. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot bigger than the celebrations used to be,\u201d Kenny said with something of a sigh. \u201cBut I understand it. It\u2019s a complicated world right now and you\u2019ve got to take your joy when you can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Arsenal bus turned off Blackstock Road towards Newington Green, the heaving crowd was ready. It was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-707682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}